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6 Suspects Held In Connection With Ellis County Murder

Four suspects in custody in Ellis County (Credit: Ellis County Sheriff’s Office)

WAXAHACHIE (CBSDFW.COM) — Six suspects are in custody in connection with what investigators believe is a gang-related homicide of a 21-year-old man in rural Ellis County last week.

Abel Armando Martinez, 19; Rafael Morales-Perez, 19; Fredy Abel Martinez-Rodriguez, 24; and Inmer Obed Palma Garcia, 24; have been charged with first-degree felony murder. Their bonds have each been set at $1 million, though immigration holds are being sought to revoke bond because the men are all undocumented immigrants.

A fifth, 18-year-old suspect is in custody in another county and is awaiting transfer to Ellis County. The identity of the sixth suspect, a 15-year-old female, is being withheld because of her age. She is in the custody of juvenile authorities.

Deputies with the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office were first dispatched to the 600 block of Edmondson Road, in the rural Ellis County area of Forreston, after a motorist reported an unresponsive person lying in the roadway on April 6. Deputies determined that the subject, later identified as Henry Fabian Villatoro of Irving, was deceased and had been shot multiple times.

Believing that the murder was gang-related, investigators traced the plot to kill Villatoro back to Irving, where the suspects are from. Authorities believe the victim was lured into the car, taken to rural Ellis County, and killed.